Oil spill along North Coast

[kdeer]

Environment

I am well aware of the damage to the environment and its ripple effect...my family is actively involved in environmental protection and saving the worlds oceans...I was simply making a comment on the additional damage to the DR if the beaches etc are shut down. Depending on the actual size of the spill this is definately going to have a serious negative impact on both the environment and the economy of the DR.

 

[cabaretewilliam]

fragile ecology? have you seen the garbage all over this island? And the damage to the economy means there will be no money to clean up anything - that may be too much for some to grasp...

 

[senorblanco]

Our friends are using coconut oil and suntan oils
These have got to better for your body than using Kerosene or gas.

 

[AK74]

Whom to contact to learn the true scope and cause of the accident? How clean and safe is the water to swim for small children? A family with kids wants to know. They had plans to visit from Europe next week and are concerned now.

Any hotline phone number?

How to say correctly " oil spill" in Spanish? Fuga de petroleo? Escurrimiento? Derramamiento?

 

[kdeer]

Any update on this

...has the clean up started?

 

[Campesina]

The oil barges used to empty their tanks off the coast of Florida when they finished off loading. globs of oil/tar washed up on the beaches. That was stopped many years ago. Probably this was just a small amount of oil, but it floats and breaks up into small bubbles and makes a mess. Not a huge environmental issue, mostly a nuisance. Let's don't get it all out of proportion. An oil spill spreads out in a wide area and can be seen for miles. This isn't the same thing if it is mostly bubbles of oil. Don't panic and call in the the whole world to draw attention to us over anyone else. Mostly, track down the ignorant ships captain and prosecute him.

 

[senorblanco]

24 hours and nothing ?
no input, no replies ?
Has there been any action?
Any statement from the gov't?
Any #$#Q%%# anything ?
No posts here or anywhere?
I guess we have to pretend again, and tell the kids to "Go for a swim"
It's high season, god forbid we worsen tourism with any eco-truths.
Is it safe to swim in Caberete?
Does anyone even care?
I'm baffled

 

[juliusg]

I'm very must in accordance with Campesina.

What I saw:
This started happening in the night of Dec 16, 2009. I didn't have a chance to go to the beach until early this morning (Dec 18). It took me a little while before finding any evidence of what happened, so this nothing like a Exxon Valdese thing. However, apparently, there was quite a bit more "evidence" the morning of Dec. 17th. Unfortunately, I missed that, but I have photos of this morning (Dec 18). Check out Index of /oil-on-beach

What people that "know about this kind of stuff" say:
I talked to some people "that know" about these things (sorry, I will not name them but they really know). They all say that there is nothing to worry about. What they say is the following: An oil tanker must have "cleaned up" not too far from here (north coast of the Dominican Republic), upstream of the current. This is completely illegal, however, it happens a lot around the world. Not so much anymore but, as we are witnessing in Cabarete right now, it does still happen. It used to happen a lot in Dubai, Florida, and many other places around the world. But, it is nothing like a fully loaded oil tanker spilling oil. They says, just as Campesina says, it is "mostly a nuisance" to people. Wildlife should not affected.
The greatest nuisance for individuals is mostly with this goo getting stuck on your feet. (I got some stuck on my feet too). Apparently, the very best way to get rid of it is with fly spray. Something like Baygon - apparently it works like magic. (I'm not too sure about putting fly killer on my feet - I didn't do that). The other thing that works quite well is cooking oil. (I did do that and it worked way better than soap, but getting rid of the oil is quite a bit of work too - more or less like getting rid of the oil after a oil massage).

What to do:
The great majority of the oil patches are mixed up with the sea weed that washes up almost daily. That stuff is removed every morning. This is why I probably didn't see much of the oil this morning (most had been removed already by the regular cleaning of the beach the day before - I did go before the cleaning this morning). My guess is that by tomorrow or after-tomorrow, there will be just about zero evidence of this incident. So, for the beach of Cabarete, I think nothing special has to be done. It's probably almost all gone by now.

Beyond that:
I personally think that it would be really nice if the culprit can get caught and they get a huge fine (and Cabarete gets part of it to do positive environmental stuff with it - we really need it), but the "people that know about these things" tell me that there is most probably no way anyone will be found guilty. But anyway, this is somewhat beyond what I wanted to report here.

 

[Uzin]

juliusg : Thank you for a very prompt and informative post. (I just wish someone would do the same for Sosua beach... or is it clear over there...)

 

[wishingiwasthere]

Thanks for putting it into context and showing pics - the wife and i had visions of something really bad - its obviously not great - but a lot better than what this post leads to....

 

[anng3]

I was at Sosua bay beach yesterday. I didn't see any sign of oil. The water was unusually rough though.

 

[atomiczombie]

Still some remnants of the goo mixed in with sand and seaweed, but not too much still around Thursday night along Cabarete East, Ocean Manor, Orilla del Mar, etc. It's annoying and sticky. We used some dilluted Javex cleaner and came off feet just fine.

 

[ruth_oo]

There definitey has been a massive oil spill from an offshore ship. I have posted pictures of the spill at this website link.

http://photobucket.com/oilspillcabarete

This is a huge issue for both tourism and the environment for Cabarete. IF this was any other responsible country our beach should have been closed down immediately and the cleanup would take approximately 3-5 months for this type of spill. The faster the authorities react to a spill the easier it is to clean.
The most I have seen on the beach are two Dominicans with brooms and a dustpan slowly cleaning up some oil chunks and two army officers on the beach inspecting the sand.
Since the time has run out for an easy clean up the only way to get rid of all the oil is to shovel out all the sand on the affected areas and replace it with fresh sand. Im sure we can all guess how much that would cost and I can only assume the government isn't about to spend their money on this.
The only other way for the oil to disappear is by mother nature, this process will take 15-30 years for all of it to disappear.
You may not see the oil chunks anymore since the sun has blended them into the sand but all the dark spots you see mixed in is in fact oil. The new sand washed in may cover up the oil but it is still there and doing alot of damage.
I would definitely advise no swimming for quite some time.

 

[AK74]

There definitey has been a massive oil spill from an offshore ship. I have posted pictures of the spill at this website link.

http://photobucket.com/oilspillcabarete

This is a huge issue for both tourism and the environment for Cabarete. IF this was any other responsible country our beach should have been closed down immediately and the cleanup would take approximately 3-5 months for this type of spill. The faster the authorities react to a spill the easier it is to clean.
The most I have seen on the beach are two Dominicans with brooms and a dustpan slowly cleaning up some oil chunks and two army officers on the beach inspecting the sand.
Since the time has run out for an easy clean up the only way to get rid of all the oil is to shovel out all the sand on the affected areas and replace it with fresh sand. Im sure we can all guess how much that would cost and I can only assume the government isn't about to spend their money on this.
The only other way for the oil to disappear is by mother nature, this process will take 15-30 years for all of it to disappear.
You may not see the oil chunks anymore since the sun has blended them into the sand but all the dark spots you see mixed in is in fact oil. The new sand washed in may cover up the oil but it is still there and doing alot of damage.
I would definitely advise no swimming for quite some time.

A lot of ocean wild life will be killed and water will be contaminated with ptomain/ptomaine (post-mortem poison), although visually looking clean and healthy. This kind of poison (it is deadly for humans) has no color.

What a shame that Dominican government and media keep it in secrecy from tourists/visitors. Greed!

 

[Tamborista]

A lot of ocean wild life will be killed and water will be contaminated with ptomain/ptomaine (post-mortem poison), although visually looking clean and healthy. This kind of poison (it is deadly for humans) has no color.

WHAT are you talking about?

ptomaine poisoning - a term for food poisoning that is no longer in scientific use; food poisoning was once thought to be caused by ingesting ptomaines.

 

[danely]

Well...whatever you wanna call it, it still sucks.

 

[AK74]

Ptomaine is deadly poison produced by decomposting dead body (cadaver) (human, animal, fish, moriscos). With oil spill millions of live creatures die and decompost producing tons of ptomaine into ocean water that our children swim in.

 

[TOOBER_SDQ]

I am not familiar with the incident, however from what I read, the issue can be resolved if the local authorities consider it to be a hazzard. "Bioremediation" is a common green practice of cleaning up oil spills; it is costly. It does not solve the problem, but does solve the consequence. I add this post only because of my profession. I am a Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineer.

 

[Bryanell]

I am not familiar with the incident, however from what I read, the issue can be resolved if the local authorities consider it to be a hazzard. "Bioremediation" is a common green practice of cleaning up oil spills; it is costly. It does not solve the problem, but does solve the consequence. I add this post only because of my profession. I am a Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineer.

The surprising thing is that nobody is familiar with the incident unless they've been there and seen it or read about it in this thread. For "some reason" it hasn't hit the headlines probably because neither SEMARENA (DR Ministry for the Protection of the Environment and Natural resources) nor the so called competent maritime authority (Marina de Guerra - the DR Navy) has a clue about the source of the oil. No shipowner to hit, therefore no one to pay for the clean-up. Anyway, the marine environment "watchdog" for the entire Caribbean region (which is an internationally protected area) is the US Coastguard based in Puerto Rico - they have frequent flights over the ocean hunting oil slicks, they also have a permanent representative at the US Embassy in SD but he's probably on home-furlough for the festive season.

I'm surprised that Jaime David Fernandez Mirabal hasn't mentioned it, probably as no one was alert enough to spot the offending ship and nobody wants to admit that.

There was also a recent oil spill in the Mona Passage between the DR and Puerto Rico. There is one major suspect but again no eye-witnesses have come forward, and at this late stage it would be very difficult to prove anything. It would mean analyzing samples of the oil in the water and trying to match it to the fuel on board the suspect ship. The later that takes place the more chance the offending ship has to refuel, get rid of samples of the offending fuel oil and obliterate traces of the fuel remaining in the tanks.

 

[ruth_oo]

What has been done so far

The day after the spill I contacted Clean Caribbean who are located in Florida but watch for oil spills throughout the Caribbean. This is their website Clean Caribbean.

After several conversations they informed me that they should have been notified by the DR government and since they had not they would contact those needed to attend this situation. Since the oil spill they informed me that they have contacted all necessary DR authority, who have all denied the situation even after seeing the link with the pictures proving the oil spill. This company helped clean up the Exxon Valdez spill and have aided and instructed DR authority in practice situations in the past.

We also called the oil spill emergency numbers for DR itself and when we informed them of the spill they said that no such thing had happened. We told them we were in the process of wiping it off our hands and feet and that it had indeed happened. The man replied that he didn't like the way the conversation was going and hung up. Clearly the DR government wants to turn a blind eye to this situation and unfortunately the inhabitants of Cabarete will have to pay for it.

Only choices we really have are to push to get it cleaned up which may close the beaches for a few weeks or months, meaning a hit to tourism. The other choice is to let it go and let mother nature take care of it, meaning 15-30 years of unhealthy beach and waters.

If you are for the first choice please continue calling DR authority and make complaints and push for our beach to be cleaned.